


It's Not Quite the Same

by GoldenRaven



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Cannon didn't make me care about Green's parents so Gio's just her dad now sorry, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, and go home soon after escaping, au where Silver and Green are half-siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenRaven/pseuds/GoldenRaven
Summary: Mummy was sundresses, and perfume, cookies, and dress up. Fairy tales, painted nails, and warm hugs.Daddy was expensive suits, and shiny watches, cologne and cigarettes, and fresh-turned earth. A warm lap, and stories of other regions, with promises that Green would see them one day.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	It's Not Quite the Same

Mummy was sundresses, and perfume, cookies, and dress up. Fairy tales, painted nails, and warm hugs.

Daddy was expensive suits, and shiny watches, cologne and cigarettes, and fresh-turned earth. A warm lap, and stories of other regions, with promises that Green would see them one day.

Mummy’s house was cozy. With pretty curtains, old, cushy furniture, and neighbors who waved when they saw her.

Daddy’s house reminded her of the castles in Mummy’s stories; endless halls, big windows, a balcony, and a bedroom the size of Mummy’s kitchen.

Pallet was sunny and small, homey but not suffocating; Viridian was large and shaded by the surrounding forest, everyone knew her as the gym leader’s daughter, and it meant she tended to get her way.

In Pallet she explored, and got muddy; was dragged out of trouble by Jiggly more than once. And in Viridian she played at being a princess; strutting around the gym and the mansion, trying to copy the authority in the way Daddy carried himself as his persian trotted behind her, ever the cautious guardian.

She remembers the years that she had a step-mom for. She doesn’t remember her name, but she does remember being disappointed to discover she was getting a half-brother, not a half-sister, and when that disappointment went away the first time she held him; perched on the bed in a frilly dress that probably had grass stains on it, studying a wrinkly baby with already notably red wisps of hair.

(She’d still been disappointed that she couldn’t play dress-up with him. Apparently babies are not as sturdy as her ever-growing collection of dolls.)

She also remembers the night it all went away; golden claws breaking through her bedroom window and closing around her, squirming until she realized that falling would kill her, then sobbing until she passed out from the cold in the air, and waking up with a mask frozen to her face.

It’s the cruelest joke when she realizes Silver’s there too, made even worse when he doesn’t recognize her.

Except maybe that’s a blessing in disguise; if they aren’t supposed to be friends they are definitely not supposed to be siblings.

So she doesn’t tell him. But she keeps him in her escape plans.

Out of the base, then back to Viridian, then Pallet, she tells him. She doesn’t say why it’s that order, or that he’ll be staying in Viridian with their father, but he nods along all the same.

They slip away in the middle of the night. The Mask’s worst mistake was giving them the skills to outdo him; his second-worst was teaching them not to be scared. The escape is just another mission, he’s just another opponent to be outsmarted, and they’re gone the first chance they get.

It’s not until she slips Silver’s mask off, and sees his face for the first time in years (and feels air against hers for the first time in just as long), that Green begins to panic.

She doesn’t remember Mummy’s face. Or Daddy’s.

Her throat tightens, and as soon as they dare call themselves safe for the night she sits Silver down and tells him everything.

He studies her in silence for a long time, before simply nodding.

“Let’s go home then,” is all he says, because why would this change anything, really? She’s never not treated him like a younger brother.

The journey to Kanto is hard, but they’ve both braved worse, and a few days without food is a fair trade for being away from The Mask, and at some point, the trees start to look familiar.

There’s no one in the mansion when they break in and Green starts a fire in the fireplace, before raiding the kitchen and settling in to wait with Silver. They eat their way through most of a loaf of bread, with various toppings, before he dozes off only a few minutes before she hears doors opening, and she slips out from under his head in her lap, leaving him to sleep as she creeps towards the hall.

She’s met with Persian’s low growl, which quickly turns to an excited purr when she sees her, and Green buries her face in the cat’s neck as she curls around her.

There’s a hand on her shoulder, then warm arms around her, and she feels her feet leave the floor as she’s picked up, followed by a murmur of, “Dolcezza” in her ear.

Then there are questions.

Is she hurt? No.

Is Silver with her? Yes, but please don’t wake him up.

Where was she?

She tucks her face in his shoulder and shakes her head.

It’s Persian who finally draws attention to Silver when he wanders into the hall, standing back up to study him with curious eyes, and Green holds a hand out invitingly when she’s set back on her feet.

His fingers thread through hers, and she pulls him closer, then there’s an arm around each of them, and Green watches as Silver inches closer to their father.

He’s home. She’s halfway there.

Mummy and Daddy had stopped talking as much after Green disappeared. It’s not very surprising, she’d started to suspect she was the only thing holding their odd little family together, even before, but it does mean that it takes a week to find Mum.

She spends that week relearning the house and showing it to Silver.

Her dresses are still in her room, and finding them is enough to have her on her bed trying not to cry.

It seems so strange now; that there’d been a time when she hadn’t had to worry about anything more complex than inventing games for her and Jiggly to play, fairy tales to act out.

When Mummy finally arrives Green clings to her for ten minutes, refusing to move as she and Daddy talk.

Mummy’s fingers stroke her hair, and she doesn’t smell like cookies anymore, but Green supposes she hasn’t had much cause to make them.

But then she hears mention of a step-father waiting at home, who can’t wait to meet her, and suddenly she’s not sure she wants to leave with Mummy.

Silver’s mom had been nice, but that had been back when Green still knew how to trust; when she was a smiling little girl in a pink dress with mud stains. She doesn’t want a new variable; she wants to go home.

But Daddy squeezes her shoulder, and whispers to her that she can always tell him if she doesn’t feel safe, and Green thinks about Silver, and how he hadn’t wanted to split up, and how he’ll probably feel better if she seems happy to go with Mummy, so she nods and smiles, and then they’re gone.

Silver calls every day for a while. To hear her voice, to be reminded this is real. Then the calls drop to once a week, and Green tells herself that it’s good that he doesn’t need her as much (it still hurts though).

Mummy had moved out to Sevii while Green was gone, which means Viridian and Daddy are once a month trips, rather than weekly. Which is fine until it's not; because the new house is too strange, too unfamiliar.

So is “Dad” as she’s decided to call him.

It’s not that he’s done anything wrong, but Green had had a system before, and he throws it off. Father’s bring exciting stories, and expensive presents, not awkward small talk.

Silver’s happy; looking better every time she sees him. More color in his face, curiosity instead of fear in his eyes, and he even smiles now.

Daddy seems different though, she realizes as the months go by.

He doesn’t treat her and Silver differently, but he just seems… off. More serious, and there’s something hard in his expression whenever his phone rings, or while he’s at his desk behind the curiously large piles of paperwork he’d somehow started to end up with while Green had been gone.

She asks him once, curled up in his lap while he reads a file, what they’re about, and he goes very still.

“Research,” he tells her, ruffling her hair. Ways to make pokemon stronger. If she’s still curious when she’s older maybe he’ll show her.

It’s enough of an answer to satisfy her because while he’s clearly leaving something out, it can’t be anything bad. He’s not like The Mask, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Except he did tell her that he’d find The Mask, and Green knows he hadn’t thought she’d pick up on what he’d meant, but she did, and she’s not sure she cares. In fact she kind of likes the idea. Let him be the one scared for once.

So that’s how it goes; she sees Silver often, but not often enough. Daddy’s still the same until he’s not. Mummy and Dad are trying but don’t get it.

When she turns eleven her “journey” is really just drifting because being home feels wrong, and she doesn’t want to have something as basic as a trainer’s journey taken away because of what happened anyway.

There’s something called Team Rocket that people seem worried about, but they leave her alone so she leaves them alone.

Two boys from Pallet each get a pokedex from Professor Oak, and she’s briefly mad at Mum for leaving Pallet because that could have been her.

But it doesn’t matter that much.

She’s learned other ways to get what she wants.

Mummy seems concerned about just how much she’s “winning in battles” because it really is too much for that to be the only source, but Daddy had seemed amused when they met for lunch in Saffron and Green had tried to come up with an explanation that wasn’t conning and pickpocketing. She doesn’t think he believed her, and she knows Silver hadn’t, but it’s not that big of a deal.

She’s always gone before trouble starts.

Though it is a little annoying when the Rocket grunts she’d been selling phones and watches to suddenly won’t take anything from her.

She hears about Professor Oak getting kidnapped from Mummy, who wants her to come back because of it. Green doesn’t see what she and some old professor have in common, but she supposes the paranoia makes sense.

She doesn’t go back, just promises to head for Viridian, and stay with Daddy. He’s closer anyway, so there isn’t any point in arguing and Mummy knows it.

He and Silver are happy to see her, but Daddy seems even busier than usual, and one night his phone won’t stop ringing. Green doesn’t hear any of the discussions though, just something about Silph co.

Whatever it is must be good news; they get ice cream the next day, and he’s in a noticeably better mood, and they get to stay up to watch a movie.

Not that Green pays much attention to it; she’s too busy enjoying having her hair stroked, and the novelty of holding Silver’s hand again as she rests her head on Daddy’s shoulder.

This is nice.

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't supposed to be a Giovanni wins au but I kept thinking about how you need all three dexholders in Silph in order for them to win and... whoops


End file.
